Digital Media, Society, and Education – UCLA EdIS Research Hub

Digital media shapes education and society. Research into its impact helps improve learning digital literacy, address challenges like misinformation, and foster a more informed and connected world.

Highlights of Our Work

Addressing the Climate Crisis: Classroom Experience, Critical Media Literacy Inform New Book

Senior lecturer Jeff Share co-edits and alumnae Andrea Gambino and Amber Medina pen chapters to support K-12 teachers in empowering students.

Materializing AI and its Political Implications

Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor of Information Studies and author of “Beyond the Valley” comments on DeepSeek’s toppling of AI giants; the dangers of misinformation with close ties between tech and Trump.

Understanding the Experience of Hate Speech in Social Media On Young People

Researchers in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies are collaborating with the Organization for Social Media Safety (OFSMS) to study the impact of online hate speech on adolescents.

SMASH Project: Marc Berkman Shares Findings with Congress, LAUSD on the Harms of Social Media

Data from the SMASH study of more than 14,000 students in grades 5-12, in more than 60 schools across the United States.

Dyslexia Is The Most Common Learning Disability For All Students. Why California Doesn’t Screen For It Early

UCLA Ed&IS Assistant Research, Rebecca Gotlieb discusses the effective of screening and intervention.

Maryanne Wolf: Building Deep Reading Skills in a Digital World

“Screen-based online learning will change kids’ brains. Are we ready for that?” by Maryanne Wolf

The Critical Media Literacy Guide: Engaging Media and Transforming Education

Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share lay out the evolution of thinking and development of media and cultural studies, from the Frankfurt School to current intersectional theories about information and power that highlight the importance of race, gender, class, and sexuality.

Data Borders: How Silicon Valley Is Building an Industry Around Immigrants

Q&A with Professor of Information Studies, Melissa Villa-Nicolas on her new book that investigates entrenched and emerging borderland technology.

“Resurrecting the Black Body” and its Afterlife Legacies

Professor of Information Studies, Tonia Sutherland employs a lens of critical archival, digital, and cultural studies in her examination of the technology and societal mores around the ways that Black Americans are portrayed posthumously online, acknowledging historic bigotry, current forms of racialized aggression, and the unique ways that Black cultures continue to fight against the erasure or distortion of their histories.

Affiliated Research Centers

Girl with digital code in the background

Center for Critical Internet Inquiry

CalRBS is a non-degree education program dedicated to providing the knowledge and skills required by collectors and professionals working in all aspects of the library, special collections, archives, museums, and the rare book community.

Social Media and the Spread of Hate

The Project is an interdisciplinary partnership between the UCLA Departments of Education and Information Studies in collaboration with the Organization for Social Media Safety as part of UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate.

UC Digital Cultures Lab

UC-wide Lab offers a unique, people-focused analysis of new technologies working across every continent and dozens of countries across the world. This lab examines the means by which new media technologies impact businesses, economics, cultures, politics, labor, and the environment

UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice

The Center’s aim is to provide local, state, national and global leadership in this field, leveraging groundbreaking advances in cognitive and neurosciences, linguistics, and education to inform and transform K-12 teaching and learning.